


to wonder what and realise how (these connections are clear, I can see them now)

by MatildaSwan



Series: it's a wonder what can happen when a witch uses her words [2]
Category: The Worst Witch (TV 2017)
Genre: (mostly), Canon Compliant, Contemplations on Witchy Culture, Overdue Realisations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-14
Updated: 2018-01-14
Packaged: 2019-03-04 15:41:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13367838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MatildaSwan/pseuds/MatildaSwan
Summary: Tonight is Parents' Night and the Hubble ladies are prepared for a disastrous evening; aneducationaldisastrous evening, not so much.It leaves them both reeling, and even Miss Hardbroom is surprised at just how many puzzles the three of them manage to piece together in the span of a single night.





	to wonder what and realise how (these connections are clear, I can see them now)

**Author's Note:**

> This began life a crack!fic based on witches only having one salutation (Mistress and its abbv.) which quickly became another 'Hardbroom and Hubble have a Proper Chat' ficlet I started eons ago and had to put aside for a while. Then the new series started and I sat down to update some of information accordingly, only to spiral out of control with So Much canon-expansive material by the time I'd finished writing. 
> 
> Do I have a lot of thoughts about witchy culture and etiquette and customs, as well as their marked differences from real world standards? Yeah hecka I do! I love this fun delightful gynocentric show!!! 
> 
> shout out to the beautiful arwen for betaing and also brainstorming a bunch of these ideas <3
> 
> Note: ignores that fact that Cackle Senior uses Mrs, and sets the canon series about 30 years in the future when science has mastered splicing two eggs together to make a baby bc Millie's got two mums. Also holds that menstruation has a direct impact on spell casting, on top of the canon-established relationship between emotions and magick. 
> 
> CW: Hecate is a huge ball of anxiety and gets sensory overload very easily, Mildred probs has undiagnosed AHDH which has caused a lot of tension between her and HB, who simply cannot understand why Mildred doesn't learn the way she's meant to and doesn't know any other way to teach.

Cackle's is bustling, to say the least: full to the brim with nervous second years standing anxious but happy by their parents’ sides while they wait to be impressed, or infuriated, with the assessments given by their children’s teachers on this fine, run of the mill, annual Parent’s Evening.

‘We’ve got Miss Hardbroom first,’ Mildred reminds her mother, confident in the knowledge that tonight will be terrible and there’s nothing for it but to grin and bear it. Part of her is grateful to have the worst out of the way first; tonight isn’t going to go well no matter where she begins. 

‘Oh, good!’ Julie replies with false cheer, sniffing with disdain before she muses, ‘I wonder what she’ll have to complain about this time.’

Mildred tries to hide her snort; her mother makes no such attempt. They share a smile before making their way up the corridor to the door of the potions lab, sniggering softly. 

They quieten down when Miss Hardbroom appears; stay silent as she beckons them inside.

It’s not actually that bad, all things considered: their greetings are only mildly hostile, punctuated by Julie once again correcting Miss Hardbroom on her proper salutation, before Miss Hardbroom begins to recount Mildred’s more memorable achievements over the past year. 

They begin with the plagiarism debacle. Miss Hardbroom is clearly not enthused about discussing it—even she will admit, if only to herself, that it was not her finest hour as an educator or year head—she does her best to glaze over it.

Julie, to her credit, also keeps her outrage at the entire situation to one single, snide comment: ‘I don’t know why you lot don’t just keep truth potions or something handy, if you can’t bring yourself to believe anything your students say.’

The look that flashes across Miss Hardbroom’s face gives Julie pause; it borders on horrified, as if she suggested reintroducing corporal punishment half a century since it’s outlawing. She keeps the rest of her thoughts to herself, wondering if there’s more involved here than she knows. 

Instead, she returns to the quiet seething on the other side of the desk with a seemingly unfazed raised eyebrow of her own, before the entire conversation and most of its contents are swept back under the rug where Ethel’s pedigree as a Hallow insists it stays.

Mildred stays quiet during the exchange—it was nothing less than she expected—but perks up at the one element of the incident Miss Hardbroom sees fit to mention: Mildred’s apparent skills for working with animals. 

‘Perhaps it’s growing up outside of a magical family,’ she muses, tapping a fingernail gently against the open book before her. Mildred cranes her neck a little, trying to sneak a peek of the writing scrawled across the page in looped cursive. ‘But the way Mildred interacts with animals is markedly different to her classmates. And, I will admit, appears to work in her favour.’ 

Mildred flicks her eyes up to see the tiniest curve of a smile come with the compliment. Her eyes widen with delight and disbelief, and her brows climb halfway up her forehead. She  _ beams _ , and for a moment thinks that maybe this meeting might actually go well; but, of course, Miss Hardbroom brings her crashing back down again. 

‘Though why she refuses to apply that same talent to her own familiar I do not know.’

Mildred grins ruefully, ducking her head; little does Miss Hardbroom know, she does indeed know how to train Tabby. She simply likes him just the way he is, and so he’ll stay, no matter how infuriating Miss Hardbroom finds him.

‘In fact, that cat is responsible for several rather serious incidents this year.’ Julie doesn’t blink: Mildred already told her that Tabby had been banned from the potions labs. ‘Not to mentions the numerous magical disasters of Mildred’s own making.’

She keeps her head down as Miss Hardbroom rattles off the not entirely short list of classroom accidents with which she’s been connected in this term alone.

‘They weren’t all my fault,’ she mumbles meekly, swinging her legs back and forward. ‘Or Tabby’s,’ she adds, looking up with a pout and a plea as she rushes to her familiar’s defence. 

‘No, indeed not,’ Miss Hardboard relents, once again tapping her finger in thought. ‘Some were caused by your friends, working on your behalf.’ Mildred opens her mouth to defend them too. ‘And other classmates, in retaliation.’

Mildred snaps her mouth shut. _Well, when you put it like_ that, she thinks glumly as she stares at the floor.

Miss Hardbroom turns her attentions back to Julie. ‘The ridiculous feud your daughter and Ethel Hallow seem intent on maintaining continues to affect not only them, but the entire year. Not to mention the impact it has on your own studies,’ she adds forcefully, staring down her nose at Mildred as she moves, seamlessly, into the now familiar tirade about her consistent lack of concentration and focus. Mildred listens like she always does, as Miss Hardbroom stresses that a witch simply cannot allow herself to be distracted the way Mildred is, both in class and from personal study, if she ever wants to perfect the Craft. And, as always, Miss Hardbroom finishes with the same decree: ‘You _must_ learn.’

Mildred shoves her hands under her thighs and knocks her knees together. She knows she’s trying, just like she knows Miss Hardbroom won’t believe her no matter what she says; it happens every time she tries to explain why she hasn’t finished her homework on time. Things just seem to take her longer than it does for Maud and Enid, even when she sits down to start early—and she’s sure her assignment sheets have more questions to answer anyway—or when her magic goes a bit funny in the middle of the month. It’s not her fault she gets snappy and can’t find the energy to keep herself calm because she’s too busy fantasising about eating a whole gingerbread house. 

Every time she tries to explain  _ why  _ something’s happened the way it has, Miss Hardbroom just doesn’t listen, doesn’t seem to care, too focused on the simple fact that something has already happened. So, she stays silent. 

This time, however, her mother is here to speak for her. 

‘Isn’t it your job to teach her?’

‘Of course.’ Miss Hardbroom relents, and Julie quirks an eyebrow as the other woman continues to explain: ‘But all the instruction and oversight in the world will amount to nothing if Mildred herself is not prepared to  _ learn.’  _

‘I am trying,’ Mildred pipes up, a bit feeble but emboldened by the backup, at having another voice in her corner. 

‘I know you are, love,’ Julie says gently, reaching out to pat her shoulder; Miss Hardbroom’s clipped voice interrupts the moment of comfort.

‘Not enough, and not in the  _ right way. _ ’

Julie glares at her again. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

Miss Hardbroom closes her eyes and inhales deeply, breathing out heavily before looking directly at Julie before continuing, her voice level and measured. 

‘Miss Hubble—’

‘“Ms”,’ Julie corrects her for the second time this conversation. 

Miss Hardbroom sniffs at the interruption. Her right cheek twitches. She continues on as if she hasn’t heard. ‘—I appreciate that you’re both unfamiliar with many aspects of witchery, but we are talking about an almost wilful lack of mental discipline and magical control. And no matter how much care is taken, Mildred inevitably manages to turn even the simplest of tasks into a catastrophe.’

Mildred tries not to mope too badly; she should have known reciting transformation spells under her breath while walking down the corridor was going to end badly. She was only trying to practice before her exam; she hadn’t meant to turn Miss Bat’s socks into serpents. And while she’s sure she could have gotten the reversal spell right in the end, she is grateful HB appeared out of nowhere and turned everything back before anyone got hurt. Even if it did land her in detention with an entire tome of historically-documented worst case consequences of poorly cast magic to summarise. 

‘That Mildred is improving, there is no doubt. Her grasp of basic casting has developed admirably this past year, and her knowledge of spells and potions is adequate. With enough study, she may yet make a decent witch.’

Mildred beams down at her shoes, smiling small and bright; she’s never heard Miss Hardbroom give out that much praise in such close succession before, for  _ anyone _ , let alone the worst witch in the academy.  

‘But that potential means nothing if she cannot learn control.’ She pins Mildred with a practiced stare. ‘You  _ must  _ learn discipline. You cannot continue to allow your emotions to influence your magic, just as you cannot continue to allow yourself to be so easily distracted. It’s dangerous, to you and everyone around you.’

Mildred nods, munching on her bottom lip.

‘Right, I think you’ve made your point,’ Julie interjects, shuffling in her chair, ready to meet Hecate head to head if needs be. 

‘Miss Hubble—’

‘Oh, for god’s sake!’ she exclaims, throwing her hands into the air before slapping them, open-palmed down onto her lap. ‘How many times do I have to say, it’s ‘Ms.’!’ 

She glares at Miss Hardbroom, face flushed red and looking more than a little peeved. Hecate slams her book closed; Mildred jumps.

‘What does that  _ mean _ ?’ she yells back, glaring at Julie, eyes wide and furious, her finger twitching slightly before she clenches her fist to keep it pressed against the hardcover binding.

Mildred frowns, face scrunched up with confusion.

‘What does it—oh, I’ll tell you what it means,’ Julie threatens, breathing heavily and clearly fed up. ‘It means I walked myself down the aisle to sign my name away and take hers on the damn marriage certificate before carrying our baby for nine months and then pushing Mildred out, settling down to build a life and a family together, before _she_ gets bored and decide to leave me for a shop assistant in Harrogate! So I kept the name and changed my title and that was that. Not—’ Julie flicks a nail, sitting back in her chair and sneering, ‘—that it’s any of your business.’

Hecate stares, blinking in bewilderment. She shakes her head. ‘You took someone else’s name? Took it where, what title? What on  _ earth  _ are you talking about?’ she exclaims, her eyes wide and hand trembling slightly, tired and irritated and so very confused.

Julie deflates at Miss Hardbroom’s obvious confusion. ‘I, ah—as my own?’ she says with a shrug.

‘ _ Why? _ ’

‘Umm, family unity?’ She hazards a guess. ‘It gives the department of births, deaths, and marriages something to do? I don’t know, it’s just something you do when you get married.’ She flops her head to the side with another thought. ‘Or don’t do, some of the time. But I did, a lot of people do.’ She looks at Hecate’s still bewildered face and thinks, hopefully for the last time tonight, that there may be more happening behind this impasse that she would have expected. ‘It’s a fairly common practice.’

‘Not for witches,’ Miss Hardbroom replies incredulously. 

‘Then what do you lot do?’

‘We don’t _do_ anything, it’s…’ she trails off, her brow furrowed in thought; she remembers her cousin being terribly excited about marriage laws a few decades ago, about finally being able to marry. It confused her, because as far as she was concerned Colette and her wife had already been married for years, since the day they decided to live in the same house and share the rest of their lives. The idea that their marriage was anyone else’s business has set Hecate’s teeth on edge, and while the party they insisted she attend had been nice enough, she didn’t see how it made them more married than they had been the day before.  

‘I think this is another thing we do differently,’ she says carefully, stitching together plausible explanations as she goes. ‘We have weddings too, our own set of ceremonies and customs. But a marriage is simply an agreement decided among all involved. There’s no certifications, no, what did you call it—department of births, deaths, and marriages?—to report to on the matter, should it begin  _ or  _ end. We have no need for anything like that; all our records are magical.

‘And families keep their own genealogies. Not that’s it hard,’ she adds flippantly, before explaining, ‘Filial connections are sacrosanct. Wizards change their names if they so desire, but no witch would ever  _ dream _ of denying her lineage by taking someone else’s name as her own, or claim a birthright that isn’t hers.’

Mildred’s eyes widen with an epiphany; she makes a note to apologise to Miss Cackle again, for claiming to be her niece. Then another realisation hits her, right on the heels of the first. ‘Oh!’ she hums. ‘ _ That’s  _ why you’re still ‘miss’ even though you’re married.’ 

Miss Hardbroom’s face twitches. ‘Apparently so.’

Mildred turns to her mother, eyes sparkling happily; Julie ponders a moment more before querying:

‘So how do parents choose which name their children get?’ She doesn’t remember meeting anyone with a hyphenated last name.

‘You keep the name your magic comes from,’ Hecate replies simply, before frowning once more. A fingernail taps on the desk and then freezes, the pattern of her fingerprint hovering parallel with the swell in the grain. ‘Does that mean Hubble is not your only maternal name?’ she asks carefully, deliberately, lowering her fingers and side eyeing Julie as she speaks. 

‘What?

‘Who were you, before you were Hubble?’

‘You mean what’s my maiden name?’

‘Yes, that.’ Her finger twitches. ‘What was it?’

‘Foster,’ Julie replies, reeling slightly. ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

Hecate closes her eyes, breathes in deeply, and resists the urge to pinch the bridge of her nose. She breathes out evenly, opens her eyes, and raises an eyebrow at Mildred. ‘And you didn’t think to search for _that_ in the archives?’

‘No, I, why…’ Mildred trails off, eyes widening with realisation and confusion and delight. 

‘And your mother, she would have had one of these _ maiden names _ too?’ she asks, turning back to Julie.

‘Yes, of course, they all would.’

‘No wonder you haven’t been able to find anything,’ she huffs out. ‘With your ancestors changing their names on a whim, how could you?’

‘You mean I really might not be the only witch in my family?’

Hecate can’t help smiling, just a little, at how just hopeful the girl sounds at the prospect of not being the first of her kin. She’s seen how worked up Mildred can get—suspects it’s happened outside her of presence too, on many occasions—whenever Ethel brings up her lack of history in the witching community. 

_ Maybe having something to tie her down will keep her grounded _ , she hopes; the girl desperately needs a solid foundation, and nothing Hecate has tried thus far as worked. ‘You are certainly the first Hubble in witching record, Mildred, but you may not necessarily be the first witch of your family.’

Mildred beams, her whole face shining so bright. Julie does her best to keep her daughter from jumping out of the chair with joy. Hecate watches the pair of them, quirking an eyebrow and pursing her lips; it really wasn’t so hard to figure out.

‘This is amazing!’ Mildred squeals. ‘We could start looking after we see Miss Drill and—’

‘The dungeons are still out of order,’ Miss Hardbroom cuts her off. How the girl could have forgotten that specific disaster so quickly she does not know. ‘It ought to be repaired by the weekend, but your search shall have to wait till next week.’ The way Mildred’s face crumples twists at Hecate’s gut; before she has a chance to think it through, she offers, ‘I can help you look then, if you like.’

Mildred’s eyes gleams and she stops slouching in her chair; sits up ramrod straight and stares at her teacher.

‘Would you!’

‘You would?’

Both Hubbles seem equally surprised—Mildred gleeful and Julie suspicious—but neither so surprised as Miss Hardbroom herself. It’s too late to take it back now, with Mildred glowing with excitement and Julie eyeing her with apprehension. To take it back would only serve to make her look both foolish and, worse, cruel. While all the sweetness her nature can allow is spent on only the most precious of moments, Hecate is not cruel, never unkind for the sake of it; stern, certainly, and stricter than most, but never cruel. Nor does she lie, or give her word without meaning. 

‘Meet me in the archives during your break on Monday and we shall begin,’ she promises, solemnly and already cursing herself, certain this is going to end up as yet another Hubble shaped disaster she’ll have to clean up. Mildred’s wide, happy grin as she crackles with excited energy does little to calm her nerves, but it does soften her cheeks a little.

She ducks her head slightly, tries to hide her smile while it curls in plain sight, and realises she has nothing else to add to their conversation. 

She sits forward in her chair, appraises the pair of Hubbles with a sharp eye. ‘Now, if there’s nothing else, I believe you have to see Miss Bat next,’ she prompts with a curt nod towards the door. She gestures a hand for emphasis, and gets a murmur of ‘thank yous’ in return. 

Mildred scrambles out of her chair, scraping the legs on the floor with a screech that grates behind Hecate’s ears and sends a shiver clawing up her spine. Julie stands up, far more gracefully than her daughter, and pushes the chair in carefully while Mildred dashes off and out the door. They hear her greet Enid and her mother as Julie leans against the back of the chair.

She takes a moment to school her thoughts before looking up. ‘Thank you, for offering to help. It was kind of you.’

Hecate blinks. She can’t recall if anyone has ever said that word around her, let alone about her; she’s not sure what she should do. 

‘You know, you’re the teacher Millie talks about most when she’s home. At first, I thought it was because she was scared of you, of getting expelled.’

Hecate sniffs; she had rather harped on with that particular note, but she did think it best for the school at the time, and Mildred too. The Craft is far from forgiving to an untrained witch dabbling where she does not belong, treading paths before her time; it’s something her most troublesome student continues to prove time and again, despite Hecate’s best attempts instill some sense of safestly and common sense into the girl.

‘But she’s not frightened of you anymore. Actually, she never shuts up about—when she was working on that ruddy talking animal spell it was a constant ‘Miss Hardbroom this’ and ‘HB said that.’ Every. Day. And she got Einstein talking just as much, so thanks for that,’ Julie adds, glaring like someone owes her an apology. 

Hecate doesn’t see how the tortoise is her fault; granting animals the power to speak is one of the last things she would ever suggest her girls try. And even then, it would be a lesson in magical limitations (thinking back, she ought to have known it wasn’t Ethel’s spell; she grew up around magic, would never have questioned one of witchery’s longest held status quos. If she hadn’t been in such a state, hadn’t let Agatha’s machnications and her own failure to protect the school bother her so much, perhaps she would have seen things clearly). 

_ But not anymore,  _ she reminds herself. Because a barely trained and completely unsupervised twelve year old took it upon herself to rewrite witching lore, all because Hecate had asked for something imaginative. 

‘She worked harder on that project than I’ve seen her work on anything, except maybe her drawing. She wants to impress you, so much.’

Hearing her suspicions confirmed is perhaps even stranger than merely wondering; to know that her esteem sits at the heart of the chaos that clings to Mildred and everything she does.  

‘And, I haven’t the foggiest idea why, but she seems to learn better with you, too.’

That addition, she hadn’t expected. When it came to Mildred Hubble, she feels as if she’s running into a brick wall most days. She wants to say Mildred is the single most stubborn and hard to teach student she’s ever had to endure, but Hecate tries her best. Like she does for all the girls.

Julie doesn’t give her the chance. ‘You do it on purpose, don’t you? Give her extra homework, turn her detentions into study sessions without her realising. So she’ll catch up to the rest of the year.’

Hecate blinks, caught out and a bit startled. There’s something about Julie Hubble that cuts right along a line that other people—her fellow witches—just can’t see. It unsettles her, unused to having others notice the way she works. She doesn’t know what to say.

‘Thank you, for looking out for her,’ Julie says warmly, kindly, and the weight of all that gratitude effects Hecate more than it ought to. She inhales sharply, tightens her jaw, blinking rapid. 

‘You’re welcome,’ she manages once she’s swallowed the lump in her throat. The corners of her mouth twitch. ‘ _ Ms. _ Hubble.’

Julie smirks. 

‘Mum, what are you doing?’ Mildred calls, sticking her head back through to the doorway to reclaim her misplaced parent. ‘Come on, we’ll be late!’

‘Coming love!’ she calls over her shoulder before looking at Hecate one last time. Her eyes crinkle as she grins, bright and wide, before she turns without a word and rushes away.

Hecate’s smile in return, tiny and  _ bright _ , is still curling at her lips as she opens her book again, shuffles it to sit squarely in the middle of her desk, and rises to greet the next parent. 


End file.
